's
the price of your life to start through the marshgrass surrounding the
swamp unless you are covered with heavy leather above your knees.

"You should be able to swim in case high water undermines the temporary
bridge we have built where Sleepy Snake Creek enters the swamp. The fall
and winter changes of weather are abrupt and severe, while I would want
strict watch kept every day. You would always be alone, and I don't
guarantee what is in the Limberlost. It is lying here as it has lain
since the beginning of time, and it is alive with forms and voices. I
don't pretend to say what all of them come from; but from a few slinking
shapes I've seen, and hair-raising yells I've heard, I'd rather not
confront their owners myself; and I am neither weak nor fearful.

"Worst of all, any man who will enter the swamp to mark and steal
timber is desperate. One of my employees at the south camp, John Carter,
compelled me to discharge him for a number of serious reasons. He came
here, entered the swamp alone, and succeeded in locating and marking
a number of valuable trees that he was endeavoring to sell to a rival
company when we secured the lease. He has sworn to have these trees if
he has to die or to kill others to get them; and he is a man that the
strongest would not care to meet."

"But if he came to steal trees, wouldn't he bring teams and men enough:
that all anyone could do would be to watch and be after you?" queried
the boy.

"Yes," replied McLean.

"Then why couldn't I be watching just as closely, and coming as fast, as
an older, stronger man?" asked Freckles.

"Why, by George, you could!" exclaimed McLean. "I don't know as the size
of a man would be half so important as his grit and faithfulness, come
to think of it. Sit on that log there and we will talk it over. What is
your name?"

Freckles shook his head at the proffer of a seat, and folding his arms,
stood straight as the trees around him. He grew a shade whiter, but his
eyes never faltered.

"Freckles!" he said.

"Good enough for everyday," laughed McLean, "but I scarcely can put
'Freckles' on the company's books. Tell me your name."

"I haven't any name," replied the boy.

"I don't understand," said McLean.

"I was thinking from the voice and the face of you that you wouldn't,"
said Freckles slowly. "I've spent more time on it than I ever did on
anything else in all me life, and I don't understand. Does it seem to
you that anyone would take a ne